one of the best places to warm start the warmup is by light movement, this moving some of the bigger muscles in the body. that's why i have people jog in place, it is utilizing the lower body muscles. those are big muscles in the body that require a lot of blood flow. once my body is warmed up after a minute or two, i can move into light joint mobility, moving my body back and forth, exploring my full range of motion. swinging my arms and my shoulders, perhaps rolling the hips. and once i'm there, now i'm ready to move. >> he made me ready to move. i'm carol costello. thank you for joining me today. "cnn newsroom" continues now with ashleigh banfield. >> hi, everybody. i'm ashleigh banfield. nice to have you with us. it is 11:00 here on the east coast and 8:00 on the west coast. so u.s. coasters and all you late sleepers on the east coast, you are not, in fact, waking up in a time warp this morning. though you may wonder when your

eyes fall on this. the u.s. jobless rate for september. that's not a typo, folks. no way, no how. 7.8%, .3% lower than the number back in august. and the lowest number since january '09. the month president obama took office. actual jobs added, less of a bombshell here, only 114,000. most of them in health care, transportation, financial services. manufacturing jobs actually took a hit last month. 16,000 of them gone in the manufacturing sector. but why would i crunch these numbers when we have the expert in the business, ali velshi, joining me live. let's leave politics out of it. let's talk numbers, facts, sheer numbers and what they s about our economy today. >> you actually put the perfect point on it. 114,000 jobs created doesn't blow the lights out. the unemployment rate dropped from 8.1% to 7.8%.

it is interesting. i have long said, ashleigh, don't pay attention to the unemployment rate, it measures a different thing every month. it is not a consistent measure from month to month. we look at how many jobs are created or lost. and it is sentimental. if there are 114,000 jobs created, it may mean wages are going up you see that on the right side of your screen. you can see compared to the last four years, it is better than it was four years ago. not as good tass was in certain parts of 2010, late 2011 and the beginning of this year. this is nothing to crow about on either side. but it is right where we thought it would be, the surprise is the unemployment number. i'll tell you one other thing, ashleigh, we revise prior months, so july and august, we ended up gaining 86,000 more john jobs than we thought we had. >> there is a bit of a change. i get it, data comes in, things are revised. >> these ones are big. >> you think? how did we get such a revision? what was missed? is this a mistake or -- >> no you know what happened,

the jobs report comes on first friday after the last month. this is september's job report. if you let it come out two weeks later or three wks later, your numbers are more accurate. reports flow in and things like that. we revise everything in economics. gdp, jobless claims, that just happens and just so happens that in the last few months it has been extra volatile. nothing at play there, nothing to bury us, just it has happened before in history. >> so let's talk about the unemployment rate. i heard you go on the air before, think only an hour ago or so, don't look at the unemployment rate if you're looking for the state of the union on the economy. however, i do want to ask you this, oftentimes when the unemployment rate drops, it is not that great, it is not great news because it means more people just stopped. just stopped looking -- they're chronic. >> this is why i don't like looking at it. you assume a higher unemployment rate is a bad thing and a lower unemployment rate is a good thing. we have seen the unemployment rate drop not recently but last month, the mon before, because fewer people were in the workforce, fewer people were

looking for jobs. good thing or bad thing. today's drop is a good thing. more people in the workforce, more people getting jobs. but it is such an unsteady, unreliable indicator. >> why are we talking about it? you're never going to get elected above 8%. >> ten years i've been saying this to people, stop using it, start talking about whether or not -- 114,000 jobs are created, those are jobs that were created. those are jobs created minus jobs lost. that's easy arithmetic that a second-grader can do. the unemployment rate is a little bit of a red herring, used as a political football, being used again as a political football today. i find it much easier to understand the other numbers. >> i don't know if we have this graphic, i tried to make it up super, super fast. >> making your own graphics now. >> throwing my staff into total disarray. i'll hold it up, can you see it? >> that's great. very tv friendly, ashleigh. >> it speaks to your spoipoint. this is what i do when i have nothing else to do. i went back to 1936 and the

jobless rate was 13.6% and the next time it was 14.6%. and then he brought it down to 8.2%, a heck of a turn. >> if it goes up, you think it is bad. if it goes down, you think it is good. any fool can tell you whether it is good or bad. >> ali velshi, thank you. >> i'm your fool today. >> come on. >> i'm the fool. you're the smart one. you're asking good questions. >> hey, thank you. happy thanksgiving to you. thank you, ali velshi. 16,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. not good. this sector has been mostly flat since april. so this is not good news. and what has been done in the past four years to try to fix the manufacturing outflux, all the jobs going overseas, outsourcing, what are we doing to get them back. there is a guy who knows a lot

about this, hal sirkin, he advised president obama on this, how to get jobs back into the united states. he's a senior partner and managing director of the boston consulting group and he's lucky enough to grab him as he's traveling all over the world, he's in brazil today. off the bat, the true report card on the manufacturing jobs in the last four years, are these jobs we just lost and we have been hemorrhaging in the four years, are we ever going to get them back? >> nice to be with you and your audience, ashleigh. we're starting to see changes in the economy. we have to remember where we came from. in 2008, the economy was in total meltdown. there was concerns about massive depression like 1929. what the government did, was to stabilize the economy so it didn't go into free fall. we're looking at a period of slow growth because we deferred this problem. however, without deferring the

problem, we would have had a depression. >> we heard a t of arguing back and forth in the debate the other night, the president suggesting there are -- this defid defied logic, defensive outsource. let me play that moment and i'll ask you about it on the other side. >> when it comes to our tax code, governor romney and i both agree our corporate tax rate is too high, so i want to lower it, particularly for manufacturing, taking it down to 25%, but i also want to close those loopholes that are giving incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas, i want to provide tax breaks for companies that are investing here in the united states. >> you said you get a deduction for taking a plantoverseas? i've been in business for 25 years, i have no idea what you're talking about. >> so i don't either. because i actually don't know the tax code that well. are there actually incentives currently, hal, that encourage people to take their jobs out of the united states? >> well, both the president and

mitt romney are both right the way they answered the question. the reality is we don't have a specific incentive to take jobs out of the u.s. but what happens is if you can move your taxable income to another jurisdiction that has a low tax rate, like china, you can pay less taxes in total as long as you don't repatriate the money back to the u.s. the president is right that you get a benefit. mitt romney is right in the sense there is nothing the tax code specifically that gives them a deduction for taking things out of the country. >> so is anything going on right now, either in the free market, or in government incentives to start turning the outsourcing trend into an in sourcing trend, reversing that hemorrhage of jobs going overseas and start bringing them back. what is the true story going on right now? >> well, the most important thing is that companies recognize that the economic shifted. it was in 2001 that companies started to outsource to china because wages were only 58 cents an hour. they have grown a lot and the is

us h u.s. has gotten more competitive. what the president has been doing is getting on the bully pulpit and making it clear to the country and the companies of the country that things have changed and they just shouldn't consider china as a default location for manufacturing. >> i want to drill down specifically on the manufacturing jobs now, because for those who don't know who are watching right now, manufacturing jobs are important because, a, they pay better than the typical job out there, they give better benefits, and they provide a lot of economic security for the middle class. so when we talk about the numbers on the screen right now, the overall unemployment, 7.8% and manufacturing jobs dipping down 1600 manufacturing jobs, talk to me about whether this election, hal, is going to make any difference, president obama or president romney, when it comes to manufacturing jobs and the trend over the next, say, three to four years. hal, can you hear me?

>> yes, i can. yes, can you hear he? >> i think we have a delay, delay, delay. >> sure. sorry. i don't think there is going to be much of a difference in terms of manufacturing jobs regardless which person is elected president. because what we're seeing is a fundamental economic shift, the economics are favoring the u.s. rather than china and companies will make economic decisions. the president and congress, of course, can -- but i think both of them are wise enough to recognize the importance of manufacturing jobs and that they need to continue -- >> oh, no. that's why we were having such problems. we're losing your signal altogether. hal, i think i got the gist of what you're saying and if you can still hear me, i appreciate your time on a busy schedule from brazil to lay some insight out there for us on the jobs. we have more on the jobs, particularly the politics of the numbers today, because optics could be everything. we'll have that in a moment. i spend long hours with her checking her heart rate,

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good morning. 13 minutes past the hour. the september jobs report is out. it not only beat expectations, but the unemployment dropped to its lowest in four years now. let's see how this is affecting some markets. alison kosik is busy watching the numbers fluctuate on the new york stock exchange. what has it done. >> you're looking at stocks modestly higher, the dow up 60 points. investors are not overly euphoric about the jobs reading but not having a negative reaction either. one analyst says everybody seems to be focused on the drop in the unemployment rate. what they should be doing is what ali said earlier, focusing on the look at job gains, that 114,000 number. the reality it is not enough to keep up with the growing population. the way wall street sees it, this reading is figuring into the fed stimulus conversation, when the fed announced it is buying up $40 billion in

mortgage backed securities every month for an unlimited period of time. when that is done and continues to do is it is juicing the gains that you're seeing in stocks despite this disconnect. you're seeing stocks go up, while the economic data hasn't necessarily been all that terrific. consistently terrific. one economist says the way this job reading is being viewed is the win-win situation either way. wasn't strong enough to pull the fed stimulus, but the report is decent enough to satisfy investors for now. >> alison kosik, thanks for that. later today, i want to remind you that the fed is going to release some additional numbers today. these ones have to do with consumer credit. and economists think that the borrowing rose by $7 billion in august. and that would be compared to a drop of more than $3 billion in july. expectations are one thing. the numbers are another. we'll have them when they come out.

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so more now on our top story of the day, maybe the week. the latest on the jobs numbers out from the labor department, the unemployment rate unexpectedly, quite unexpectedly, actually, falling

to 7.8 last month. that's first time that it dropped below 8% since president obama took office. on top of that, employers added 14,000 jobs during september. the expectations were around 110,000. and so the numbers that were really lousy back in the summer were also revised upward too. it is a bitf an icing on the cake story. the employers added 86,000 more jobs in july and in august than the department had initially estimated. before i go into more than that, more on that, i want to jump over to the president. he's live on the stump now in fairfax, virginia, at george mason university. clearly a friendly crowd, not only behind him, but in front. let's listen to what he has to say. perhaps he'll talk about jobs. >> thank you. thank you so much! thank you.

thank you. everybody have a seat. have a seat. thank you. well, it is good to be here. i am so proud to have catherine's support. can you give her a big round of applause. great introduction. it is also good to know we have got the former governor and next united states senator from the commonwealth of virginia tim kaine and your congressman jerry connolly. good to see all of you. so one month. just one month from tomorrow, virginia, you're going to step

into a voting booth and you are going to have a very big choice to make. i know folks in this crowd may have already made some decisions, but -- but for the undecideds that are here, as well as those who are watching today, you know, i said this before, this is a choice not just between two candidates or two parties, but a choice between two fundamentally different visions for america. and today i believe that as a nation, we are moving forward again. we're moving forward. now, after losing about 800,000 jobs a month when i took office, our businesses have now added 5.2 million new jobs over the

past two and a half years. this morning we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since i took office. more americans entered the workforce, more people are getting jobs. now, every month reminds us that we still got too many of our friends and neighbors who are looking for work. and there are too many middle class families that are still struggling to pay the bills. they were struggling long before the crisis hit. but today's news certainly is not an excuse to try to talk down the economy to score a few political points. it is a reminder that this country has come too far to turn back now.

because of your strength and resilience, the strength and resilience of the american people, we made too much progress to return to the policies that led to the crisis in the first place. i can't allow that to happen. won i won't allow that to happen and that's why i'm running for a second term for president of the united states. i have seen too much pain, seen too much struggle to let this country get hit with another round of topdown economics. one of the main reasons we have this crisis is because big banks on wall street were allowed to make big bets with other people's money, and now governor romney wants to roll back the rules we put in place to stop that behavior. that's not going to happen. that is not going to happen.

one of the main reasons record surpluses under bill clinton were turned into record deficits under george bush is because we put two wars and two tax cuts on a credit card. and now governor romney wants another $5 trillion in tax cuts that he can't pay for? not if i have anything to say about it. that's not going to happen. we are not going to let this country fall backward, not now, not with so much at stake. we have got to move forward. we need to invest in small business, and manufacturers who create jobs here in the united states. we need to recruit 100,000 math and science teachers, train 2 million workers at community college, bring down the cost of college tuition. we need to -- we need to cut our

oil imports in half, create thousands more jobs in clean energy. we need to use the savings from ending the wars in iraq and afghanistan to help pay down our deficit and put people back to work, doing me nation building right here at home. that's the agenda we need. that's how you strengthen the middle class. that's how you keep moving forward. that is the choice in this election and that's why i'm running for a second term. that's what we need. now, my opponent, you know, has been trying to do a two-step and reposition and got an extreme makeover. but -- but the bottom line is

his underlying philosophy is the topdown economics that we have seen before. he thinks if we just spend another $5 trillion on tax cuts, that, yes, skewed toward the wealthiest, if we get rid of more regulations on wall street, then our problems will be solved. jobs and prosperity will rain down from the sky, the deficits will magically disappear, we will live happily ever after. even though he's been proposing this plan for months now, he's had a lot trouble explaining how it would work without boring a hole in the deficit, or making middle class families pick up the tab, the other night he ruled out asking million narz a and billionaires to pay a dime more in taxes, he said there is no way he could close the loophole. ending tax breaks for corporations that move jobs overseas, he's never heard of such a thing.

who knew? who knew? when -- when he was asked what he would actually do to cut spending and reduce the deficit, he -- his big example was to go after public television. so for all you moms and kids out there, don't worry, somody is finally getting tough on big bird. rounding him up. elmo's got to watch out too. governor romney plans to let wall street run wild again, but he'll bring down the hammer on sesame street. it makes perfect sense. virginia, we can't afford to double down on the same old

topdown economic policies that caused this mess in the first place. we cannot afford another round of tax cuts for the wealth y we can't afford to gut research and technology, we can't afford to roll back regulations on wall street banks or oil companies or insurance companies. that is not a jobs claim. that is not a plan to grow our economy. it is sure not a plan to strengthen our middle class. we have been there. we have tried that. we're not going back. we're moving forward. we have got a different view about how we create jobs and prosperity in this country. this country doesn't just succeed when just a few are doing well at the top. succeeds when the middle class gets bigger. our economy doesn't grow from the top down. it grows from the middle out. we don't believe that anybody's entitled to success in this country. but we do believe in

opportunity. we believe in a country where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded and everybody is getting a fair shot. and everybody is doing their fair share and everybody is playing by the same rules. that's the country we believe in. that's what we have been fighting for the last four years. that's what we are going to put in place in the next four years, if you re-elect me as president of the united states of america. that's what we're going to do. >> and a very friendly crowd at the george mason university campus in fairfax, virginia. and you're hearing some of the typical stump speech, but not only two minutes into the stump speech, the president was able to say we have the lowest unloimt number u unemployment numbers out this morning as soon as i took office and then we have come too far to turn back now. and was able to reinvoke another reference to big bird, which is getting a lot of traction from the debate that governor romney

prepared to let wall street run wild, but bring down the hammer on sesame street. maybe funny, maybe not. but everybody grabs everything they can when a nugget comes out and when the nugget came out this morning about jobs, you can bet your bottom dollar that both parties are jumping in and jumping in deep. jessica yellin joining me live now from washington, d.c. so, jessica, you and i both know that the administration gets a look-see, an early peek at the bureau of labor statistics numbers before the rest of us get to see them. how much of a jump do they get and how much are they able to craft what they need to craft going forward to turn that message into a speech like we just saw? >> well, the head of the council of economic advisers typically is notified the night before they come out. it would have been last night and can inform the president thursday night about the jobs numbers. so, you know, that's the window there. i would point out that, you know this is one of those situations where it is important for the

white house and the obama campaign and i think you heard it too while show enthusiasm about the improvement, to be cautious, because it is an improvement, but this nation is still in economic pain. many people are hurting. i think what they're trying to do and have to do is calibrate a careful tone where it is both excitement about the improvement, but also sensitivity to what a lot of people are going through and that's why the president is trying to mesh this with his campaign slogan, which is, quote, forward. it didn't make a lot of sense when things didn't seem to be moving forward, now they can argue, well, this is a sign that it is, ashleigh. >> they may argue that, but the critics are still out there, got out there within minutes of the jobs numbers coming out saying, not enough. and they make a point, we are still in a really tough spot here. 7.8 is nothing to be cheering about. i understand both sides of this argument, but you even have a not so well known conservative think tank coming out and suggesting that the

administration's in cahoots with the bureau of labor of statistics. so has a lot of critics to answer to. >> let me explain the data on that. this is after talking to cnn money and the economists there, they explained the reason the number has dropped is not the 114,000 new jobs added, but from the surveys of households. i think it is 873,000 new households, new individuals and households got jobs or reported getting jobs last month, the greatest single month increase according to cnn money in nine years. and that is why that number has fallen to 7.8% in the last month. so if that makes sense. >> it does. look, it is a lot to get your head around, especially on the west coast, waking up at this point. i heard in that early part of the speech the president was addressing obviously the very friendly crowd, a lot of cheers. but to those among you still

undecided and that word rang very loud because those undecideds are, you know, typically jobs in the economy are issue number one with them. is the president looking at this particular report, he may have said he's not going to capitalize on it for political gain, but is this -- this kind of thing he needs to take to the undecided camp and say, look, what more do you want? >> absolutely. and i think we're doing it for him. everybody will run with this and try to parse it and dissect it. but it goes to the logic of what they have been trying to sell, which is the president has argued he came into office, and this is just true, in this time of enormous financial collapse and economic collapse. and then he will argue that he has put in place policies that have helped get the nation out of a hole. it is still digging -- we're still digging out of the hole. what he can now try to make the case to undecideds is that this is evidence that his path is working.

now, mitt romney has put out a statement already, i would like to read you part of it, he says this is not a real recovery looks like. we created fewer jobs in september than august and fewer in august than july. that is true. if not for all the people who have simply dropped out of the labor force, the real unemployment rate would be closer to 11%. so the romney campaign will no doubt go on the offensive today and still say, look, it might be a slight improvement, it is not good enough. >> yeah. and they have been using the 8% on the stump as well, so they'll have to revise that part of the stump speech within the romney camp. >> that's an important marker. >> you nailed it. jessica yellin, thank you. appreciate that. if you want to continue to watch live, hit us up at cnn.com/live for our live events. and look at this, coming up, another great debate. the next one is convenient vice president joe biden and mitt romney's running mate paul ryan. and, of course, we have got you

covered. catch all the action next thursday, thursday night here on cnn, as well as cnn.com. all the action gets under way 7:00 eastern time live. i'm barack obama, and i approve this message. these appliances could have been made here in america. but a company called global tech maximized profits by paying its workers next to nothing... under sweatshop conditions in china. when mitt romney led bain, they saw global tech as a good investment... even knowing that the firm promoted its practice of exploiting...

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reaction from the white house to that all important jobs number. the report for september reads a lot like the white hoe reaction to the august jobs report. and the july jobs report and throw june's in there too. quote, economy continuing to heal, more work remains to be done, et cetera, et cetera. and the republican reaction seems to be pretty similar too. mitt romney says this, and i quote, this is not what a real recovery looks like. you heard jessica yellin report that live. but there are recoveries. and there are recoveries. if you're a president looking in to recover from a lackluster debate performance, wednesday i'm looking at you, the jobless rate below 8% for the first time

since you took office, that might look pretty good. wolf blitzer joins me live from washington to review the numbers through the peculiar lens of politics. you heard the president say live, wolf, we're not going to use this for political gain, but it has to help him undo some of the extraordinary damage happening wednesday night. how did he use it without looking like he's using it in. >> well, just imagine the numbers would have been gone in the other direction. instead of 8.1% unemployment, going down to 7.8% or whatever the number is. if you imagine if it would have gone up to 8.2% or 8.3%, that would have compounded the problems from his lackluster performance in the debate. and if 114,000 jobs, you know, could have been 6,000jobs, that would have been disappointing. the number that is disappointing is the jobs created in july and

august. they revised the numbers for july and august, so in addition to 114,000 jobs, you add another 80,000 jobs or so, you know, you're getting some jobs out there, which is good news. it shows that the country seems to be moving a little bit in the right direction as opposed to the wrong direction, what you want to see if you're seeking re-election. >> just quickly, this jobless rate, awe go over the graphics and the history. still pretty high for an incumbent seeking re-election. we said over and over, you just can't be above 8%, but look at these numbers. fdr won the election in '36 at 16.6%. jimmy carter lost the election at 7.5%. ronald reagan won at 7.2%. george bush won at 5.4%. maybe that 7.2% is the most interesting one because it is most proximate to this election. is every decade, every era different or no? it is the number, it is the economy, stupid.

>> it is more of the right track, wrong track. do people feel that the country is moving in the right direction or the wrong direction? do they see light at the end of the tunnel or do they just see darkness and darkness. i think that is so much more important, especially as we get closer to the election. there is one more jobs report out for the current month of october, on th friday before november 6th. there will be one more jobs number that people will be able to digest. having said that, with so many states now allowing early voting and a big chunk of the country voting now, by then so many people will have already voted, so we'll see if that is going to have much of an impact. it is a new phenomenon that we're seeing this early voting by mail or whatever and so it is a significant development. and we're not fully appreciating what the impact of that is going to be, ashleigh. >> i want to switch gears to goal. mitt romney is about to hold a live event in coal country, headed to abbington, virginia.

mitt romney declared himself a bff to the coal industry. listen to this. >> by the way, i like coal. i'll make sure we continue to burn clean coal. people in the coal industry feel like it is getting crushed by your policies. >> that sounds a s awesome if ye in the coal industry. >> there is no one in the commonwealth more committed to having jobs in the commonwealth. but i will not create jobs or holdobs that kill people. and that -- >> that plant behind you, he went on to say, coal plant behind him, a real, you know, controversial thing. you know this story, wolf. and some people said, look, this was one plant he was talking about. but we went further, it wasn't just one dirty plant that knit romney was worried about. the same month, his office put out this press release, coal and oil fired plants, plural,

contribute significantly more air pollution than their gas-fired counterparts, exacerbating acid rain and global warming. this is what the democrats would seize upon and say, classic flip-flop, but does it matter when it you get to virginia and you are campaigning and suggesting this government wants to make your life -- >> you speak to the romney folks, the word they keep insisting isn't coal, it is the word that they used before that now you heard romney say, clean coal. there is a newer, better way to deal -- to use coal for energy purposes, but to make sure it is clean coal and it is going to be less destructive to the environment or whatever. so that's the argument you'll hear from the romney folks, from those who support that part of the energy industry. i do think that as he gets closer and closer and if you take a look at the thrust of what he was saying in the debate and the argument he's been flip-flopping, etch-a-sketch moment, he's gone from appealing

to the far right to appealing now to the independents, and the center, that certainly did come through, but it is by no means unusual. republicans in seeking the nomination always run to the right. when they get it, they run to the center. democrats often do exactly the same thing, seeking the nomination, they run to the left. they get it and move to the center. that's -- i've been covering politics for a long time. i'm not surprised by any of this. they want to get elected. they're politicians. that's what they do. >> i got to wrap it there. smack out of time. that clean coal scene, there is a big conversation to be held there. wolf blitzer as always, my great thanks to you. i want to invite you to go to wolf's program, "the situation room," 4:00 p.m. eastern. so, what do you think? [ engine revs ] i'll take it. [ male announcer ] it's chevy truck month. now during chevy truck month, get 0% apr financing for 60 months

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jobs, jobs, jobs. new surprising numbers out from the labor department and the headline is perhaps this, the jobless rate has fallen below 8%. for the first time since president obama took office. obviously this is good news for

the president. but some say not so fast, christine romans joins us in new york now with the details you need to know. first off, lay out the facts. just the facts, ma'am. not the spin. >> okay, the facts. there are two surveys the labor department takes, one of house holes, one of companies. the household survey, they call people up and say, do you have a job, working full time, working part time? those show -- that showed that 7.8% is the unemployment rate. the survey of employers showed that on balance 114,000 new jobs were created in the month. here's where the jobs were, okay. health care, ashleigh, i've seen this for, like, two or three years now, health care jobs every month continues to be added. transportation, ware housing, 17,001 jobs. manufacturing lost about 16,000 jobs. there has been some recent gains in manufacturing, but a little step back there for the month. so on balance, 7.8% unemployment rate, 114,000 jobs added in the month. >> i can see that manufacturing

number will be seized upon because that is not good. manufacturing jobs are really important. we mentioned that earlier on. so something else that may be seized upon, i'm not sure how to -- what to make of this, perhaps you can lay some insight, i get it when spin comes out on jobs numbers. it happens in ratings too, trust me. but there is a spin that is particularly accusatory in how the government gets the numbers, how we compile the numbers. what is the true story on how the bureau of labor statistics gets these jobless numbers and is there any nefarious activity afoot? >> here, there is spin and there is conspiracy theory. there are two different things, right? so you see spin in election year, but you see spin around the numbers constantly. there are a lot of numbers in two different surveys. so you will see people who are opponents of the president spin the numbers to say, look, look at 114,000, that is not enough jobs and they're right. the white house agrees they're right. we all know jobs growth has not been robust enough. then there is conspiracy theory.

you had this limited government group earlier today that issued a press conference release saying that there is -- that there are baghdad bobs in the bureau of labor statistics, cooking the numbers to benefit -- to benefit the president. to which i say, ashleigh, if they were doing that, where were they the day after the democratic national committee in charlotte when the president spoke and all of the wind was taken out of his sails by a lackluster jobs report or like the whole last three years when the labor market report that comes out every month shows things aren't really, you know, that hot. so i can assure you, and the labor secretary as well, she says it is actually insulting you have a-political career economists in the basement of the labor department basically working on these numbers, you know. >> five seconds left. will there be legitimate conservative critics who will come in and say, oh, come on, come on, even the democratic critics ripped president obama's debate performance on wednesday night. will there be conservative

critics who say, sometimes it is not a lump of coal, it is a sugar cube and call it what it is? >> i think there is -- i think 114,000 jobs created, if you are a legitimate conservative critic you can say that's not enough. it isn't enough. >> all right, but it is not, yo in the white house would be less, right? >> no, it's entertaining, or exasper ating. i can't decide what i feel about that right now. >> it keeps you busy. christine romans. also something to consider, ronald reagan running for re-election unemployment rate 7.5%. -[ taste buds ] donuts. how about we try this new kind of fiber one cereal? you think you're going to slip some fiber by us? okay. ♪ fiber one is gonna make you smile. ♪ [ male announcer ] introducing new fiber one nutty clusters and almonds. but they have to use special care in keeping the denture clean.

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got some live pictures for

you right there in the appalachian town of abington, virginia. you are looking at the site of carter machinery, and mitt romney is getting ready to speak live at an event. we're going to bring that to you live just as soon as it happens. it's coal country, folks, so there's going to be some excellent material to listen to, particularly with manufacturing numbers down. this is the number everybody is really talking about today. 7.8%. that's the unemployment rate at the national level. if you move in closer to the battleground states -- keep many mind the state unemployment rates for september aren't even going to release for another two weeks, so these are the most current numbers. you're basically looking at states in red are above the national jobless rate. states in green are below the national rate. one industry that's key to several of these swing states, especially in the midwest and the long rust belt is manufacturing. ted rolands is in indiana, and he is actually looking at the manufacturing story specifically today. there was a slip in those manufacturing numbers. how is that going